Answering service for roofers
Pulsemint is an answering service for roofers. You can't answer a phone safely halfway up a ladder, so when a call comes in it picks up, finds out what's damaged, what type of roof it is and whether water is coming in now, takes the address, and texts you the details within about a minute. It costs £199 a month including up to 50 captured calls, and you can try it free for 14 days with no contract.
Roofers lose the most work in the few days after a storm, when everyone with a slipped tile rings until somebody answers. This page covers what the agent asks on a roofing call and how it helps when the phone won't stop.
Pulsemint at a glance
- What it does
- Answers the calls you miss, takes the caller's details and the job, and texts you a summary within about a minute
- Price
- £199 a month including up to 50 captured calls
- Free trial
- 14 day pilot, no card needed
- Contract
- None. Cancel any time.
- Hours
- Every hour of every day, same price
- Your number
- Stays the same. Unanswered calls divert to Pulsemint.
- Setup
- Done for you, about ten minutes of your time
- Coverage
- Anywhere in the UK
Try Pulsemint free for 14 days
Leave your name and email, then pick a time for a 15 minute setup call. No card and no contract. You keep your number.
Want to hear it first? Talk to the agent now. It answers questions about Pulsemint itself, and nobody will ring you back.
The storm problem
For most roofers, work arrives in waves. A named storm comes through, and the next morning the phone rings all day. Ridge tiles in the garden, flashing pulled away from a chimney, a flat roof that's started leaking into a bedroom.
Every one of those callers is ringing a list. They've got a bucket under a drip and they want someone booked today. You're already on a roof, probably working through the last storm's jobs. The roofer who answers first gets the job, and you don't hear about the ones you missed.
That's the week an answering service earns its money. Nothing changes about how many jobs you can physically do. What changes is that you see every enquiry and choose which ones to take, instead of losing them all to voicemail.
What Pulsemint asks on a roofing call
What's happened
- What's damaged: tiles or slates, ridge, chimney, lead flashing, guttering, fascias, a flat roof
- Is water coming in right now, and which room?
- When it started, and whether it's after a particular storm
What you're dealing with
- Property type and number of storeys, which tells you whether you'll need scaffold or a tower
- For flat roofs, what it's covered in if they know: felt, EPDM rubber or GRP fibreglass
- Whether they're making an insurance claim. If they are, you'll know to take photos and write a proper report.
- Whether they can send you a photo. The agent can't receive pictures, but it tells them you'll ask for one when you ring back, which saves a lot of wasted visits.
What it won't do
It won't quote a price, promise a date or agree to anything on your behalf. Those are your decisions, and an agent that guesses at them creates problems. It tells the caller you'll ring them back, and if someone asks whether they're talking to an AI, it says yes straight away.
What a call looks like
The morning after a storm, a homeowner rings at 8.20am. Two ridge tiles are in the front garden and there's a damp patch spreading on the landing ceiling. It's a two storey semi. She's at home until midday.
URGENT. Storm damage. 2 ridge tiles off, damp patch on landing ceiling, getting bigger. 2 storey semi. Insurance claim likely. Jo, 07700 900522, 8 Example Avenue, PL3 4AB. Home until 12. Will send photo when you call.
Quotes and planned work
Outside storm weeks, most roofing calls are quotes: a full re-roof, a new flat roof on an extension, chimney repointing, replacement fascias and soffits. They're higher value than repairs and far less urgent, so they're easy to forget about. The agent takes the scope and the timescale so you can ring back with a proper conversation rather than starting from scratch.
Does it pay for itself?
Use your own numbers, not anybody's industry statistics. Open your phone and count last week's missed calls. Take out the suppliers, the spam and the people who rang back later. Be realistic about how many of the rest you'd have won, then multiply by what a job is worth to you.
Roofing jobs are rarely small. If you miss a dozen calls in a storm week and even three of them were re-roof or flat roof jobs you'd have won, one week's missed calls can cost more than a year of Pulsemint.
If the sum comes out small, you probably don't need an answering service. A better voicemail greeting and missed call text back will do. I'd rather you knew that before you sign up for anything. If you want to put your own figures in, the calculator on the Pulsemint homepage does the sum for you.
Setting it up
You keep your number. The number on your van, your website and your Google listing doesn't change. Your phone diverts the calls you don't answer, after however many rings you choose, and Pulsemint picks up instead of voicemail. Most UK networks let you set that divert in a couple of minutes, and I'll walk you through it for yours.
The setup itself takes about ten minutes of your time. I ask what you cover, which areas you work in, what you never want it to say, and what counts as urgent for you. Then I build the agent and you ring it yourself to test it before a single customer hears it.
If anything ever goes wrong at our end, the divert fails safe: calls ring your mobile exactly as they do today. You're never worse off than you are now.
Common questions
Will it cope when the phone rings all day after a storm?
Yes. It answers every call that you don't, so you see every enquiry as a text and can choose which jobs to take first.
Can it ask what kind of roof it is?
Yes. It asks what's damaged, how many storeys the property is, and for flat roofs whether it's felt, EPDM rubber or GRP fibreglass if the caller knows.
Can customers send photos?
Not to the agent. It tells them you'll ask for a photo when you ring back, and notes in the text that they're happy to send one.
Does it ask about insurance claims?
Yes. If they're claiming on insurance, it notes that so you know to take photos and write a report.
Is it safe to use while I'm on a roof?
That's the point of it. You don't touch the phone. The details are waiting as a text when you come down.
Can I keep my number?
Yes. Your phone diverts the calls you don't answer, and your number stays on your van and website.
Who is behind this
I'm Shadman, and I build and run Pulsemint myself from Lowestoft. When you start the pilot, I set the agent up for your business and you deal with me directly, not a support queue. If it doesn't catch jobs you'd otherwise have lost, don't keep it.